🎢 Got $2B to spare for a theme park?

People have been saying “RIP, Twitter” for months, but now it isn’t just some melodrama — Twitter is actually dead.

Elon Musk started the week with a hasty rebrand to X that got the internet outrage machine firing on all cylinders. And justifiably so:

• Twitter wasn’t just a brand; tweeting was a verb: In the same way a tissue is a Kleenex, Twitter owned the action of posting on social media. That’s the branding “holy grail,” as a market research expert told The New York Times — and in a quick flurry of tweets (Xs?) from Musk, that cultural hold was flushed away.
• The X logo is just a decades-old unicode character: “I’m looking forward to Twitter attempting and failing to trademark their new logo,” one academic wrote. The logo may be “interim,” per Musk, but that wouldn’t be great news either — it suggests another disorienting rebrand ahead for users.
• The switchover was rushed: So much so that “Twitter” and “tweet” remain all over the place. The name and logo changed; to date, not much else on the site has. Except for the vibes…
• People considering an exit were given another reason to seek one out: Already faced with the threat of Meta’s ~185m-user Threads, X has given new life to competitors Mastodon (surging again) and Bluesky, which trended post-rebrand.

BTW: Can anything “trend” anymore? Twitter’s 15 years of shared language is out, adding to the chaos.

This rebrand-on-a-whim move…

… isn’t making CEO Linda Yaccarino’s job any easier. She’s less than two months into a tenure meant to convince advertisers the company is stable and disciplined enough to be a good business partner.

All of this isn’t about to help her with that tall task.

Yaccarino is a seasoned pro, as seen in her framing of the X rebrand, but it’s a challenge for anyone to work on the defensive every day. She’s had limited time to put her own stamp on the company — one her boss keeps literally changing overnight.

Here’s hoping the rebrand at least came with some notice for Yaccarino, unlike the announcement of her hiring.

It always felt a bit odd referring to the competition between internet TV companies as wars.

One, because there are other, actual wars happening in the world. Two, because other industries also compete, but you don’t hear about the “burger brawls” or “coffee conflicts.”

And three, because, well, it’s really not much of a “war” between streamers anymore in the first place, is it?

Netflix is the clear leader

Boosted by its ad-supported tier and password-sharing crackdown, the company’s profitability and subscriber growth are accelerating as its competitors struggle.

Netflix barely even mentioned its alternative growth narrative — gaming — in its latest shareholder letter because why would it?

• Other streamers — from Disney, to Warner Bros. Discovery, to Paramount, to Comcast — are now just trying to keep up with Netflix, whose stock performance is leaving the rest in the dust.
• Competing platforms are now raising prices and cutting content — a necessary but questionable growth strategy, if you ask us.

Overseas operations, a large stash of pre-produced content, and non-reliance on linear TV networks have also positioned Netflix to better weather — and perhaps even benefit from, to the tune of $1.5B in production-cost savings — Hollywood’s strikes, which it’s blamed in part for causing.

Good news for moviegoers: The “war” against movie-theater chain AMC’s strategy to charge more for better seats saw very little combat. The company dropped the plan last week.

Vinita, Oklahoma used to claim the world’s largest McDonald’s, but its 29.1k-square-foot, turnpike-spanning point of pride is no more.

Last week, the town’s spell of obscurity appeared to lift: Mansion Entertainment Group announced plans to plant a $2B theme park about the size of Disneyland in Vinita’s backyard.

The American Heartland amusement park, Mansion says, will soon bring “Americana-themed” entertainment — and 5m+ visitors per year — to Route 66.

With rides spanning six themed lands, such as Liberty Village and Electropolis, American Heartland looks like a good time — in the renderings.

Will it ever be more than fanciful artwork, though?

Mansion says the park will open in 2026. That’d be grand for the families (and economy) of northeast Oklahoma, but it may be a tougher road ahead.

Industry expert Robert Niles runs Theme Park Insider, and his analysis raises questions for American Heartland:

• How’s it getting financed? “$2B? That’s the current market cap of the entire Six Flags chain.” Niles says “even a $100m park would struggle to make back investment.”
• … because how are millions getting there? The site is “miles away from any major city or airport.”
• How can a park without popular tie-ins attract enough visitors? Disney World attendance is slumping despite the pull of Mickey, Marvel, Star Wars, and more. American Heartland’s biggest IP is… freedom?

The best news here: We all win no matter what.

• If American Heartland gets built, we’ll have fun in a few years with the inevitable fried monstrosities on its concession menus.
• If it doesn’t materialize, we’ll get to revisit the long list of foiled theme parks, including our favorite pipe dreams: Kansas’s Land of Oz and Virginia’s Disney America.